Strange mp3 Problem

So I click on my mp3 Love Will Grow to listen to it, and it crashes explorer. I go back into the folder, click on it again, and explorer crashes again. I've had this happen to me before and I managed to delete the mp3, but I didn't care about that one - this one I do. It worked fine a week ago when I listened to it, and every single other time I've tried to listen to it for the last 2 years, over different computer systems. Something happened to the file, it wasn't just something crappy I downloaded.

So, to continue with the story, I deleted it (doing so from the command prompt ended up being the only way) and downloaded another copy. I clicked it to open it, and explorer crashes again. I delete this copy and download YET another copy. I try playing it as it downloads - it works great. As soon as it's downloaded I click it to open it... you guessed it, explorer crashed again.

Every single other mp3 of mine works great. It's just this one that doesn't work, and crashes explorer whenever I click it (just clicking on it and looking at it probably does it because of the preview thing in explorer) So I'm wondering if anyone knows what's up. If this is something the RIAA did, and I hold that as a possibility only because I remember reading someone mentioning that they wanted to implement a plan that would corrupt mp3s on a user's hard drive, then I'm serious when I say I'm going to kill them. That, or redouble my efforts to start a political party to forcefully remove business' hand from our government's ass.

Just out of curiousity, did you happen to redownload the file from Kazaa?

Where are you downlaoding all these copies from? The same place each time (possibly Kazaa)?

I remember something about it's possible to create corrupt ID3 tags in MP3s that cause programs to crash when they read them - Winamp posted a fix for that back in December, and I know there was a patch for Windows too, which was Q329390. The security page with links to patches is here. Maybe try installing this patch first, then see if you can select the file afterwards.

I tried redownloading it from Kazaa lite, iMesh, and every other filesharing program I have. Not to mention, the file had worked previoiusly for a long time, so something happened to the file itself somehow.

I just tried the one copy I still have in the newest version of winamp - it runs fine, so the problem must lie in explorer itself; when I click on it in explorer it still crashes. I found out it runs fine in winamp by adding it from winamps menu. So... I can run it, but I'd like to be able to run it by double clicking it, not by adding it from winamps playlist - that takes longer than I'd like.

As for the patch, I'm running win2k, so I don't think that patch will help unless I can run it on non-xp systems.

It sounds more like an explorer or Winamp problem than a problem with the MP3. If you double-click a file and Explorer lists it as being associated with Winamp, explorer shouldn't even care what's in the file, it should just tell Winamp to open the thing. If the file opens fine if you do it manually from Winamp, maybe something is screwing up before the file gets read. Are MP3s still associated with Winamp? Maybe try re-associating MP3 files with another program (Media Player... *shudder*) and see if explorer will let you double-click-open them with that. Then turn the association back the Winamp.

Yay for Windows not telling you what the heck the problem is when things crash. "Illegal operation" could be anything.